Traditionally, payment and/or ticketing applications have been residing on a secure element embedded onto a credit card sized plastic smart card. More recently, secure elements containing payment instructions and/or public transportation tickets have been incorporated into mobile devices, such as mobile phones.
Near field communication can cover various short-range techniques and technologies which enable wireless communication between devices when they are touched together or brought close together. This includes contactless close-to-touch connectivity technologies which involve electromagnetic and/or electrostatic coupling. Examples include Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology as well as Near Field Communication (NFC) technology specified by various standardization bodies such as NFC Forum, International Organization for Standards (ISO) and ECMA Internation to name a few. Radio Frequency memory tags (RF tags) and RF tag systems can also be used for short-range wireless communication between devices. In general, an RF tag system can comprise mobile readers/writers (mobile devices) and RF memory tags. Ultralow power, fast RF and high capacity nonvolatile memory has also been proposed for short-range wireless communications.
Combining a secure element and short-range wireless capability in a mobile device can effectively make the mobile device a wireless smart card capable of performing EMVco defined EMV payments and/or acting as a transport ticket.